Nosy Relatives: Marriage…

I hate when you go see a relative and they start pushing about your relationships (sometimes, the lack thereof).

I just celebrated 3 years of dating with my boyfriend. And we’re perfectly happy where we are right now; living together, raising pets, and just trying to make our way in the world.

But the number of looks I have seen in the last week when I tell them we’ve been together for three years. I swear, there is nothing more irritating than people giving me looks like I should be dropping hints that we need to get hitched.

I don’t have to drop hints. We’re adults that talk about our future together like adults and make big decisions together. I don’t need Auntie Nancy butting into our business and trying to push us in a direction we don’t feel comfortable taking as a couple (Auntie Nancy isn’t a real person, btw). I don’t care that everyone over 40 got married in their late teens/ early twenties, that’s not a feasible concept anymore, especially for work benefits, taxes, student loans debt and regular debt incurred just trying to live.

But the worst part of the nosy relative trying to drop hints? That you’re not involved in the relationship to begin with. You may be related to one party of the couple, and you could be their closest friend, but that doesn’t mean you have any form of say in what the couple decides is best for them. You don’t get to push your son into proposing because you think he should be settled down by 25, like you were. Hell, you probably don’t even really know what your relative wants from their relationship or from life. Maybe they want to travel the world before marrying, maybe they want to be well-off enough to be able to provide a house instead of an apartment to their new spouse, maybe they want to pay off their student loans so that they don’t wrangle their new spouse into helping them pay it off.

So when I get those looks from friends and family, I have to fight to bite my tongue lest I say something truly regretful. Because the last thing I want to talk about is how my marriage is failing because I married someone after 1 year, while still in the honeymoon stage of a relationship, and then realized that the person I am now married to and raising children with is not compatible with me. Oh wait…